The invention is situated in the field of materials handling technology and concerns a method and a device which serve for the conversion of a stream of flat articles being bendable to at least a limited degree, wherein the articles, prior to the conversion, are aligned essentially transverse to the conveying direction and, following the conversion, parallel to it or wherein the articles, prior to the conversion, are aligned parallel to the conveying direction and, following the conversion, transverse to it and wherein the flat articles, when aligned parallel to the conveying direction, are conveyed one after the other, i.e., not overlapping one another. The flat articles are in particular rectangular or square shaped; they are, for example, printed products or stack-shaped groups of component parts of multi-page printed products.
In a stream in which flat articles are arranged parallel to the conveying direction and one behind the other, significantly higher conveying speeds are necessary to achieve equivalent conveying capacities than is the case for a stream, in which the articles are arranged transverse to the conveying direction. Therefore, it is a concern of materials handling technology to convey the flat articles, whenever possible, with an alignment transverse to the conveying direction or parallel to the conveying direction and overlapping one another. Such concern acquires more importance the higher conveying capacities become. However, it is frequently necessary, in particular for processing steps to be carried out on continuously conveyed articles, to align the articles one behind the other and parallel to the conveying direction. If for such cases conveyance in parallel and one behind the other is to be restricted to a necessary minimum, the article stream needs to be converted in the manner described above.
The mentioned stream conversions are known to be implemented, for example, by redirecting the articles by 90°, the redirection being carried out together with a transfer from a supplying conveyor to a removing conveyor. For keeping the devices required for such conversion within a tolerable limit and for still being able to move the articles in a controlled manner during transfer and redirection, usually two conveyors are used, one of which (in most cases the supplying conveyor) is operated alternatingly. If two continuously operating conveyors are used, an at least partially uncontrolled article movement during the transfer is to be accepted.
Publication U.S. Pat. No. 1,760,030 describes a transfer of glue-bound books from a binding machine to a drying machine, wherein the books are conveyed one behind the other and parallel to a first conveying direction in the binding machine and transverse to a second conveying direction in the drying machine, wherein the two conveying directions are essentially horizontal and encompass an angle of 90°, and wherein the outlet from the binding machine is located above the entrance to the drying machine. For the deviation, the books are released from holding means of the binding machine in order to drop into conveying compartments of the drying machine in an uncontrolled manner.